A Lovely Family A Crooked Empire
by julysunicorn
Summary: Dib and Zim are best friends who can't seem to be able to do anything right except draw. When Zim gets fed up with their empty lives and decides to take a chance on a dream, will Dib be able to keep the both of them afloat, or will they both drown in the inky depths of their own creation? ZADF. Rating may change. AU where Dib and Zim are Henry and Joey.


A Lovely Family; A Crooked Empire

Chapter One: Leap of Faith

December 31st, 1928. It was bitter cold in New York City, and a fresh blanket of snow was just drifting down to cover the high-rises and busy streets in frost. Hundreds of people were milling about in Times Square, eagerly counting down the minutes before the ball dropped and the first quarter of the country welcomed in 1929.

From their apartment in the Lower East Side, neither Dib Membrane nor his longtime friend and roommate Zim Allen could see the festivities farther up Manhattan, and though watching the ball drop was a highlight of many, neither of them could care less. For them, the new year didn't mean new opportunities, adventures, or a fresh start - it was only a reminder that they were 25 and 26 and their lives were already going nowhere.

All the young men wanted to do was draw. It was the only thing they had ever been good at, really. Dib had crippling social anxiety from a childhood of neglect, and Zim had a notorious fiery temper when faced with anyone he found inferior to him, which was 99% of people. While their early relationship had been rocky, as the two grew older they saw many similarities between them, and had forged a friendship out of knowing they were truly the only two of their kind.

Which was quite a headscratcher, considering Zim was an honest-to-goodness _alien._

Nibbling on the dill pickle hanging like a cigar out the side of his mouth, Zim set his pencil down with an audible _clack._ "What do you think of this one, Dib?" he asked, getting up from his spot on the hardwood floor to run his work by his friend.

Dib, distracted by his thoughts and staring out the window, didn't hear him at first. Impatient as ever, Zim nudged his shoulder roughly, causing the human to jump and turn around. "Huh? What?"

"Ugh! Are you lamenting over the celebrations _again?_" whined Zim. "You do this every year. I'm not happy about it, either, but at least I don't sit and wallow in my disappointments!"

"Sorry," Dib muttered, running his thumb and forefinger over his suspender out of nerves. "I have a hard time distracting myself."

"Well, I can fix that," Zim said, rolling his glassy pink eyes before thrusting his sketch paper in Dib's face. "READ IT!"

"Okay," Dib said meekly, taking the paper under his desk light and adjusting his glasses. Zim perched his hands and chin on Dib's shoulder excitedly.

It was a storyboard for a cartoon short featuring a character the two had developed over their teen years: a little green dog named Gir (Dib had asked Zim just why he named the character that, but all the alien could do was snicker and say it meant something "special" on his homeworld). The short started with Gir waking up and happily deciding he wanted waffles for breakfast, so he went into his kitchen to find that... he had no ingredients for waffles.

And that was it. That was the end of the storyboard. It was only four panels long.

"Uh, well..." Dib began, trying to go easy to preserve his friend's delicate ego, "your linework looks really good."

"And what of the story? What did you think?"

Oh, no. "I, I thought, um... it was a little short..."

"Well, they _are_ called 'shorts,' Dib."

"But... it feels a little abrupt."

"That's because the emphasis is on the disappointment of Gir! Look at him! Look at how sorrowful he is! Isn't it grand?!"

"I... I..."

"UGH, FORGET IT! IT'S TERRIBLE, I KNOW!" Zim screamed suddenly (right into Dib's ear), wrenching the paper from the human's hands and crumpling it into a ball before chucking it into the metal wastebasket beside the desk. He then swiped Dib's lighter from the desktop and lit the end of his pickle before pelting the ignited vegetable into the trash as well, to burn away his disowned work. Upset, he fell back to the floor, hugging his knees to his chest and burying his head against them.

Anyone else would've seen this display of anger and frustration and run for the hills. Dib, on the other hand, had witnessed this many a time and knew to wait at least as long as it took for Zim's breathing to regulate before attempting to console him. Before he could even think through what to say, though, Zim spoke from his ball of himself. "You're so much better at drawing than I am, Dib."

_This_ wasn't normal. Dib could count the number of times Zim admitted that _anyone_ was better at something than he was on one hand - but all of those times, Dib himself was the one named as champion. He was the only one to whom Zim could admit defeat or inferiority, but it never did anything for the human's confidence - instead, it only made him worry more for his extraterrestrial friend.

Dib leaned over the arm of his chair to look at Zim. "Zim, you're great at drawing. If there's something you don't like about it, just do some more practice."

"No amount of practice will change the fact that I can't do this," Zim said, low. "I can't do anything."

"That's not true," Dib returned, slipping out of his chair to sit across from Zim. "Okay, so maybe your writing needs a little work - but you know something you're _really_ good at? That even _I_ can't do?"

Reluctantly, Zim peeked up from his knees. "... what?"

"You're fantastic at character design," Dib said, smiling. "You always know the finishing touch to really make a character unique. If I were the one doing that side of things, all our characters would just be talking circles."

Slowly, Zim started laughing. "Good thing I'm here, then!"

"Good thing we're a team," Dib said, relieved to see the joyful glint had returned to his friend's eye.

Zim's laughter wound down, and to Dib's dismay his troubled expression returned. "Dib..." he said slowly, "... I can't keep going like this."

Dib cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"Living in this place, our lives just passing us by..." Zim's grip on his knees tightened. "I can't stand it any longer!"

"What do you think we should do?" Dib asked.

"I... I think..." Zim began, looking around like he was about to explode. Finally, after several tense seconds, he blurted, "We should open our own cartoon studio!"

Dib leaned back, shocked. "What? Zim, how on Earth would we be able to do that? We're just a couple of amateurs, and we barely have enough money for bread these days!"

"What have you always told me, Dib? _'Practice makes perfect?'_ We could take commissions from businesses, and get a whole bunch of practice in that way - and we can work out of here in the meantime, until we can afford an actual office!"

"Zim, I really don't think it'll be that easy-" Dib argued, but Zim stopped him right there.

"Dib, _I am wasting my life in this place._ So are you. Do you really want to keep working as a janitor all your life? On this world, you can't just sit by and cross your fingers that an incredible destiny will find you - you've got to create it yourself! _You've got to dream big!_"

Dib was about to correct him and say the phrase was "_in_ this world," but Zim's mistake was kind of fitting anyway, and the alien had already jumped to his feet and was pacing wildly across the creaky floor. "Can't you see it, Dib? _Membrane & Allen Studios,_ up there on a big, bright sign! It can happen, Dib! It can _come true, _if we just _fight for it!_"

A sudden _boom_ and bright lights from outside wrenched Dib away from his friend's speech. Turning around, he saw fireworks in the distance, bright and sparkling in the clear night sky. It was now 1929.

"Well? Whaddya say, _partner?_" Zim asked, leaning down to offer his hand to him.

Dib spun back around to see Zim, his tie undone and a wrinkled mess, a crooked smile wide across his face, the flashes from outside reflecting in his eyes, and the dark circles beneath them. He looked like a wreck... a run-down, exhausted _wreck._

But more than that, he looked like his closest friend in the whole world.

"... I say... let's do it," Dib said, grasping Zim's hand and feeling a similar smirk creep up on his own countenance, "partner."

hey there everyone! c: here's a new story me and my friend have been working on (my same friend who co-wrote when my magic meets your science). it's an idea we've had for a while and we kept kicking it around until we finally decided to write up a chapter. while it's still too early to tell just how long the story is going to be we're not planning on writing any smut this time so while the rating may change it's just because of what we're dealing with here. bendy can get pretty scary so. but we hope you enjoy c:


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